Stranded
So, I was meant to drive up to Glasgow today, to make it up for a few days over the new year period. However, at 11.30 this morning the car looked a bit like this:
The initial problem was that the windscreen washer jets weren’t working, and givne the road conditions today (filthy) this was a bit of a problem. I eventually found the problem (which my usual garage claimed to have fixed), and decided to try somewhere else. I took it to a BMW specialist south of Cambridge, and he looked at and fixed it up. He asked me what I was up to, and I explained I was about to drive up to Glasgow and he looked at me as if I were an idiot (amazing after only a few minutes - usually takes people a lot longer to realised I’m genuinely an idiot ;). He then proceeded to point out that all the various belts in the engine, with the exception of the cam belt (which was placed after this disaster) were about to fall apart - looking at them you could see his point - some had teeth missing, cracks almost all the way through, and so on. He advised against a long journey until these were fixed. Ho hum. He told me where I could get the parts, and he could fit them if I wanted, but that’s not going to happen until next week at the earliest (the BMW parts place I went to is out of one of the belts), so I suspect it’s a train tomorrow for me.
So, this just highlights my car ignorance. I was of the opinion that I get the car serviced and MOT’d each year, and this I’d never get into the position where people would be telling me not to take the car more than a few miles from home. Perhaps it’s because I go to a regular garage rather than a BMW specialist, but the garage was RAC recommended, so I’d hoped it would be all that I needed. Apparently not. Good job I just paid my iMac off - looks like I can see where the money that was used for that is going for the next month or two :/